Fall From Grace
by Quettaser
Summary: Done for the CSI Lyrical Challenge. PostGrave Danger Nick knows what he did wrong and knows he needs to make it right. NickGreg Slash.


Title: Fall from Grace

Author: Quettaser

Rating: R

Pairing: Nick/Greg

Notes: Thanks to shacky20 and 0creativity for the betas (and the title).

Warnings: Grave Danger Spoilers, slash

Summary: Done for the CSI Lyrical Twin Challenge. Post-Grave Danger. Nick knows what he did was wrong and he needs to make it right.

Fall from Grace

I shouldn't have done it. Shouldn't have said it, said all those stupid things I was thinking. I should have known I wasn't in the right state of mind, should've known I wasn't strong enough yet.

I should've known how much I needed him.

Then I wouldn't be sitting this shitty apartment on a broken chair next to a crappy mattress, staring at my phone, fingers twitching.

You'd think being buried alive would make you smarter, more aware.

_Bullshit._

It makes you stupid, scared, edgy. Like a horse that used to be whipped, a tangle of jittery limbs afraid to be touched. Unable to see that the person reaching out to them is trying to help, trying to soothe. That the outstretched hands aren't going to harm, they're going to hold.

I'm so stupid.

I know that now. I know what I need to do, what I need to try.

Helen told me it's not my fault, that I was still working through the trauma and that it's a natural reaction to push people away. That you start to associate them with the trauma itself and you're trying so hard not to remember it, not to dwell on it, that you can't bear to look at them anymore.

And I guess that's part of it. But there was more to it than just what happened that day. We weren't the strongest to begin with and somewhere along the line we lost a lot of our time together. We were strained, fighting over who cleaned the dishes, who left a towel on the floor.

We should have been spending our scant amount of time together just enjoying ourselves. You're supposed to _want_ to go home, to want to spend time with the person you love. We probably should have ended it. We just weren't healthy for each other. Looking back, though, I'd take the most fucked up relationship over this.

This…blank space.

Except, I know that's not right. We _were_ healthy for each other. I smiled in ways I never could before when I was around him. He made me happy. And I knew we could have made it work. But that was before.

Helen said it's not too late, that if I love him and he loves me that we can work through it. She even offered to recommend someone for us. But I saw the look in his eyes as I picked up the last of my things.

There's nothing therapy can do to help us. Not after that…

…I grab my shirt and it smells like him, everything in the box does. And he's just standing there, watching me. I've never seen him so still and I can tell by the way he's biting his lips he's biting back tears.

I want to take it back. Take back everything I said, but I can't go back to the way it was before, the miles of silence between us that hurts so much more than the blank look I see in his eyes.

"If-if I find anything else I'll let you know," he says, straining to keep his voice flat.

I want him to cry. I want him to break down and ask me to stay, because I would, I would stay. I would stop taping up the box. I wouldn't nod and reach for the door.

_I would have stayed._

But he didn't, didn't stop me, didn't whisper my name, just turned around as I shut the door…

It wasn't until I pulled that shirt out of the laundry basket, smelling only of detergent that I broke down in my brand new crappy apartment and realized what I'd just lost.

What I'd thrown away.

I've only been back in the lab for a few weeks now and it feels good, feels good to throw myself into something. I don't have to worry about me, I can focus on the case. I can disappear. I can become a vessel for science and logic and the justice system. That's easier than sitting at home, alone with my thoughts. I can forget.

For the most part.

They still walk on eggshells around me. They don't say words like "grave" or "ants," afraid that I'll be thrown into some sort of traumatic episode.

That's not what sets me off, what makes me tremble and sends me closer to a panic attack.

It's seeing the pity in their eyes, knowing that they're reliving it every time they look at me. That when they see me, they see me buried, see me bathed in green. I know the pain I'm causing them just by being there, can see it in their eyes. They look so much like my mother's eyes, filled with pity and ache, when I told her what had happened to me so long ago, when I told my father who I love.

I have to push it to the back of my mind, focus on the case, find the evidence, solve the crime, because otherwise I'll turn into a shivering ball, huddled in a corner somewhere, afraid to face the world.

And I've been through that once before.

No kid, no _one_ should have to live through that, to learn how to hide their pain in the little corners of their heart so that no one else can see. I can't go back to that because I know I don't have the strength to pull myself back out.

Except, I _was_ doing it again. I _was_ back there. I was doing it again without even realizing it. Breaking all the promises I'd ever made to myself, pushing further and further away.

Being in the lab isn't all that easy, though. I still see him, still pass him and that rips me from my carefully constructed world of science and logic and I'm back in our living room and it's ending all over again…

…He's sitting in the armchair, curled up, arms around his knees, holding a mug of coffee and staring at the wall. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks tired, beaten.

I reach out to trace my fingers along his face, but he pulls back just a little bit, enough for me to know I shouldn't.

"Greg, did you sleep at all last night?" I ask, knowing that he didn't. I didn't sleep much either, torn between watching him, wanting to reach out and hold him and wanting to forget it, because I'm the one who's hurt. I'm the one who got buried. I need the comfort, not him.

And I hate myself for thinking that, for being so selfish. Because if he hadn't kept it together, if they hadn't, then I'd still be underground.

"No." He's still staring at the wall. Silence takes over again and I shift on my feet. We're stuck in this again, this unbearable quiet. I'm choking on all the words I want to say, but I can't get my throat to work. I want to tell him that I always knew they would find me, that I'd never been happier to see anyone in my life. That somewhere between the light and ants, I realized that he was perfect and that I couldn't imagine the world without him. That I didn't care about any of the stupid things we've ever fought about.

That I loved him. More than ever.

But when I finally speak, those aren't the words that leave my mouth. "We can't keep doing this."

"I know," he answers quietly, still staring at the wall and he reaches out to put down his coffee mug.

We haven't made love since I came home from the hospital. He hasn't touched me and he pulls away when I reach for him. I ache to hold him again, to feel his skin on mine, to see something other than pain in his eyes.

And I can feel it, feel the change on the air and my mouth is dry and I can almost see the end of it. Then the words spill out, fast and shaky, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, unbidden. "Jesus, Greg, we haven't-haven't even gotten close to it since it happened. I need you and you can't even touch me without breaking into tears."

He turns to me now, eyes flashing in anguish, and his distress cuts through me, sucks the air from my lungs. "Well, what the fuck do you want me to do about that? I mean…just-fuck-Nick, I watched you die!"

His eyes are filled with tears again and I'm torn between sympathy and rage. I'm tired of it, tired of the way people stare, they way they whisper around me. I'm the big pink elephant in the room no one wants to notice. We've both done it, both hide ourselves from each other, and now all those repressed emotions are spilling out, flooding the air.

"I'm not dead, goddamnit! I need people to stop treating me like I am." I reach for his hand and he flinches again, and that tears at me because now I know why. But I grab it anyways and sit across from him, place his hand over my heart.

It's bittersweet, the warmth of his hand through my shirt. I want more so badly, want him close again. "Feel that, that's my heart, beating and alive. I'm alive and I need you. I need you here, Greg."

I hold his gaze for a moment and his hand flexes against me, it's almost a caress, but then he's pulling it back again, curling back into the chair.

"I-I can't, Nick. I look-I look at you and you're back in that coffin and-"

"Damnit, I'm right here! You found me-"

"Nick, we found you with a fucking gun to your head!" He's screaming now, voice cracked in pain, and I can see, see how much I've hurt him. Now he's out of the chair, pacing, wringing his hands, sniffing, trying desperately not to let his tears spill over.

I had tried so hard not to think about those last moments, those moments before the dirt was wiped away. Those moments where I would have pulled the trigger.

Except I wouldn't. Didn't…I don't know anymore.

"You almost did it, too. Another thirty seconds and you would have been another fucking corpse for me to process. Don't you get that? Don't you fucking get that?" he yells.

"Greg, I-"

"No, Nick. Don't give me any of your bullshit. It happened. You gave up and you almost left me. You almost left me." Those last words are a whisper and I see the anger washing away, leaving him a tired husk.

I don't remember ever being more angry. Who is he to throw that in my face? He doesn't know what I'm going through, what I have to live with. Nothing but empty eyes staring back at me, no safe place left, every second reminded of what I survived. That the man I love won't touch me.

"That's what you think of me? That I was going to throw my life away for nothing? Fuck you, Greg. You weren't in there, you weren't trapped in a fucking _box_ being eaten alive. So until you know what that feels like, I don't want to hear _your_ shit."

He looks like he's been slapped, eyes blank, body slack. He quickly gathers himself, forcing an even tone into his voice. His tears are long gone.

"You're avoiding it and you know it. Have you even told your shrink? I know Warrick won't talk about it. He's too embarrassed to bring it up, and Lord knows _you _haven't talked to him. Until you acknowledge what you did, I just can't-You won't get better until you do."

I can't take it, take another guilt trip, another person telling me they can't look at me. I've borne too much of that already. "I can't waste my time on someone who can't support me when I need it the most."

He rolls his eyes. "Well, it's good to know I'm not worth your fucking precious time. Don't you get that it rips my heart out to see you working so hard to get better, when you've still got this big thing you can't deal with, hiding away? When it's just going to come back and bite you in the ass like it always does?"

"Greg, I just need you to-"

"Need me to what, Nick? Shut up and hold you until you've sufficiently buried anything that might make you a weaker man? Polish over any faults because you can't be anything less than perfect? Because unless you appear perfect to the outside world no one's ever going to love you? It's a crock of shit and you're refusing to deal with it. You know we haven't talked _once_ about what happened. Hell, Grissom knows more about how you feel than I do. I thought I was a part of your life. Guess I was wrong."

He knows which buttons to press. He's not wrong about that.

"I can't take this shit anymore. Goodbye, Greg."

"Goodbye, Nick…"

…And I left, door slamming behind me and all. I rented a shitty hotel room for the night and then went out to look for a shitty apartment.

After I finally broke down, just home from the Laundromat, I told Helen everything.

_Everything_.

I was ashamed of myself, because I _had_ given up. I was going to shoot myself. I was going to commit suicide. I could barely say it at first, barely think it, because that's just not what a good Christian does. It's not what I'd been raised to do.

It's not what _I_ would do.

Except I did. And I'd been hiding it, tucking it away with all those other things I was ashamed of, things that made me bad. Things that I didn't want to deal with because that would mean God really was punishing me. That who I loved was really a sin.

Then it hit me how little I prayed when I was down there.

Maybe I was punishing myself because I had forgotten God.

Except, I had left that God behind long ago. I still believe in Him, still try to do what's right, but enough has happened to me that I know that the God who answers prayers doesn't exist.

I told Helen how my mother looked when I finally told her that I was abused.

I told Helen what my father said when I finally told him I loved Greg.

She told me that I should have told Greg. And she was right. I hadn't told him about the conversation I had with my parents in the hospital, I didn't do much more than sleep once I had come home. Greg was quiet, waiting for me to open up. He used to watch over me through my nightmares but those stopped after two weeks.

I'd never told him how I felt about God, how I felt bad for never going to church on Sundays anymore. That, I'd always felt, in the back of my mind, that I was just biding my time until God noticed what I'd done wrong and I would get my due punishment.

I really am stupid. Still berating myself for things I didn't believe in anymore; Residuals of a messed up childhood, keeping me from the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I get up from the broken chair and head towards the other side of the room, moving boxes until I reach the one I'm looking for. I dig to the bottom, past pens and post-its, random knick-knacks and Christmas cards from Mom.

There.

I pull my old Bible from the bottom of the box and carefully brush the dust from its cover. It had been years since I last opened it, last ran my hands over the thin, fragile paper. But I wouldn't be looking at a verse.

Tucked inside the back flap is a piece of paper, crinkled with age and smelling faintly of home, as if the very fibers of the paper had been seeped in leather and dust and heat.

The bible itself was a gift from my father, given to me when I graduated college, right before I went to join the force. It had been nearly three months after that when I found the piece of paper stuck inside the back flab, a note scribbled in my dad's nearly-ineligible handwriting.

_Nicholas,_

_ Keep this with you always, if not on paper, then in your mind. God is merciful. God forgave us our sins by having his Son die for them. Your errors in judgment – and you will make them – are already known to God, and He understands that you are imperfect, and make imperfect choices. If you strive to do what is right, you'll likely hit the mark most of the time. And when you miss, God will understand._

He didn't sign it, but I knew it was from him, the handwriting unmistakable. I always thought he had given this to me to guilt me into pursuing the law. That he wouldn't hold it against me when I realized that choosing the police was a mistake and that I really belonged in law school.

But now, looking at it, maybe that's not what he meant at all. Maybe even then, long before I told him, long before I realized it myself, maybe he realized I do this, take too much upon myself, punish myself for what _I_ think God thinks is wrong.

And it hits me.

I've fucked up.

How many times had Greg soothed me after a hard case, kept me from blaming myself, from punishing myself because I thought I'd failed? I'd pushed away the one person who could have helped me. Who loved me in spite, no, _because _of all of my flaws. Who didn't see me as bad, who saw me as _me_. He was a blessing and I tossed him aside and at this moment I know that God would never forgive me, no, that _I_ would never forgive myself if I didn't try to make it right.

I tell Helen what I've realized. She doesn't say anything at all, just smiles, and I know that just once, I've gotten something completely and utterly _right_.

And now I wish I could go back to that day when I first came home from the hospital, when I didn't talk to him, when I started hiding it all away…

…Greg ushers me in the door, refusing to let me carry my own bag, shooing me towards the bedroom. I look around and I can tell he's cleaned, organized the magazines and journals on the coffee table. I think he even vacuumed.

The sheets are fresh, clean and soft and Greg's right there next to me, helping me change, easing me into pajamas. I haven't worn pajamas since I was twelve, but I kind of like it. They're light and satiny, they don't scratch the still-healing bites covering my body.

I slide into bed and Greg smiles down at me, tucking me in. "Call me if you need anything," he whispers against my forehead, lips brushing my skin in a not quite kiss.

I reach out and grab his wrist before he can walk away. "Stay with me." I shift over, make room for him. I'm not ready to be alone yet. In the bright light of the hospital with all that machinery it was easy to sleep. But here? It's too quiet and with him next to me, when I wake up in a cold sweat and frightened for no reason, I'll know that I'm free, that I made it out alive.

He changes into a t-shirt and boxers and slides into bed, cradling me into his chest. I move a hand to slip just under his t-shirt, to feel the warmth of his skin. He pulls me tighter and I can feel him begin to shiver. He buries his face in my hair and I can feel the wetness on my scalp, the tension in his body.

He doesn't want me to know he's crying.

It makes me flinch, move my hand so it's low, near his hip and pull him closer. I can feel him fight a sob and it breaks me, tears me in two.

I can't pull away, can't bear to look at him, so I press deeper into his chest, dampening his shirt with my tears…

I don't remember if we slept, we didn't move, didn't talk, just stayed there, knotted together until he got called into work.

I passed the time trying not to think, not to calculate hospital bills or medicine costs. Not to think about what almost happened to me. I bleached the bathroom. Twice. I fell asleep before he came home, and when I woke up he was asleep on the couch.

We hadn't held each other since then. We'd come close, sitting next to each other on the couch, legs touching, watching TV and doing anything but talk. I didn't think I'd ever miss that, miss his presence. Didn't know that was even possible.

But it is, and I'm still alone in my shitty apartment, sitting on a broken chair, cell phone passing from hand to hand.

Somehow I end up dialing his number once I know he's off work. It's been a month since the fight and I know now how much I need him, how much I was hurting him by trying to protect him, how much I love him.

How _right_ we are.

I had told Helen earlier that week what I planned to do. And she helped, like she always does, helped me plan what I was going to say. I didn't want to hurt him anymore than I already had. I practiced the words, ran them over in my head. I wrote down the name she recommended.

It rings for a while, and I think he must be screening his calls, but he finally picks up. He doesn't sound surprised to hear from me. Just…sad.

"Yeah, Nick?" His voice his soft in my ear and it's so achingly familiar that I find myself shaking. I miss him so much and I can't remember anything I had planned to say.

This time the words pour out easily, and I realize that I'm not scared anymore. Scared of what he might think of me, scared of being stupid because I've already lost everything that's ever meant something to me and that thought is freeing, and my mouth moves without difficulty.

"I'm an asshole and it shouldn't have taken me a month to say it."

I can hear his smile, the ghost of the big full grins I used to know. "You always were a little slow on the uptake."

"I said a lot of things that were stupid and hurtful and not true."

"I know."

"And you were right about everything."

"No, I wasn't."

"It doesn't matter. I wasn't mad at you, I was mad at myself."

"I know."

"I still love you."

There's a pause and I hold my breath without realizing it, muscles tensing of their own accord.

"I know," he whispers, so quiet that I can barely hear it.

"It's alright if you don't, because I royally fucked up and I wouldn't blame you if you hated me forever, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't tell you how I feel. I should have done it a long time ago. I should have been honest with you, should have let you help me. I shouldn't have pushed you away. I know there's probably nothing I can do to make it right, but I thought you should know." And I must have been babbling for a few minutes, but the second I hear his voice I stop. I want to listen to every syllable because this may be the last time I ever hear him so close.

"I still love you."

And the breath I've been holding finally escapes and I lean back into the crappy chair, trying hard not to grin.

"Even if you are a royal asshat, you're my asshat, Nick." He's somewhere between crying and giggling and my stomach flips.

God, I've missed his laugh.

"Come over, okay? I miss you," he whispers. "This house is too big for one person."

I don't want to try again if he's still hurt, if he's not ready. I don't want him keeping things from me, the way I did before, pretending he's stronger than he really is. I don't want to have to live through this again. "Are you sure?"

"No," he laughs, nearly a hiccup. "But I need to see you."

Another shiver runs through me, and it's all I can do to keep from cheering and crying at the same time. "We need to talk things out."

"See, talk, touch, everything. I need you, Nick, _all _of you. Understand?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

Fin.

_A/N – The two sets of lyrics that inspired this story were:_

_I don't insist that you feel bad__I just want to see you smile__Don't ever think you made me mad__I didn't listen to your lies__(The Who, La La La Lies)_

_&_

_I know you think you can get me__I'm only flesh and bone__But you may as well forget me__(Turtles, Outside Chance)_


End file.
